


Worth Waiting For

by Corinna



Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Never Met, First Meetings, Jazz - Freeform, M/M, Singing, The Kurt Hummel Trio, nightclubs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-31
Updated: 2013-07-31
Packaged: 2017-12-21 22:25:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/905652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corinna/pseuds/Corinna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Kurt isn’t sure how he’d forget this one. He’s handsome enough, with dark hair and big brown eyes, but there’s just something about him that’s compelling to look at. Stage presence, he’d call it, if they weren’t at the bar of a Chelsea jazz club."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Worth Waiting For

“…Thank you! That’s Steve Meister on the [cajón](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caj%C3%B3n), Ryan Dawson on the acoustic guitar, and behind the mic, I’m Kurt. We are the Kurt Hummel Trio, and we’ll be back after a short break.”

Some people applaud, but then the noise of conversation swells again, and the band on the stage is forgotten. Kurt’s got no equipment to look after, so he’s the one who goes to the bar.

“Kurt. Hi.” A guy comes up to him at the bar, and it’s someone from the crowd, not one of the waiters who have become his friends. Kurt turns to meet his audience.

“Hi. What a pleasure to meet you. Enjoying the show?”

“You don’t remember me.” The guy makes an exaggerated sad face, like he's expecting to have been forgotten but he’s working it anyway. Kurt isn’t sure how he’d forget this one. He’s handsome enough, with dark hair and big brown eyes, but there’s something about him that’s just compelling to look at. Stage presence, he’d call it, if they weren’t at the bar of a Chelsea jazz club.

“I don’t," Kurt admits. “Should I?”

The guy offers his hand to shake. “Blaine Anderson. Of the Dalton Academy Warblers?”

"Blaine Anderson," Kurt repeats, taking his hand. They’d competed two years running in high school, and made small talk at a couple of show choir organizing committee events, but Kurt had never seen him out of his school uniform. “I remember you now. You were their best lead soloist.” And, he doesn’t add, their prettiest. He’d watched those Warbler performance videos for more than tips on eight-part harmonies.

Blaine ducks his head at the compliment. “One of their soloists. I don’t know about best.”

“So what brings you to the New Standard?”

“Oh,” Blaine says. “I was supposed to meet this guy here. But he stood me up, so." He spreads his hands.

A  _guy_. If Kurt had known that Warbler Blaine was gay when he had a tiny little inappropriate crush on him back during their show choir days, he would have been impossible. His friends would have made him transfer to Dalton just to get him to shut up about it, probably. But he wishes he’d known.

“Oh,” he manages. “Does that mean you live here now?”

“Yeah, I’m at Tisch.” Blaine lowers his voice as he says this, like he’s expecting the bouncer at the door to come chuck him out for admitting to being underage. It’s sort of endearing.

“Really? I’m at NYADA.”

“Oh, I know. Show choir grapevine. There was a lot of interest in where the best of McKinley went, especially since so many of you graduated at the same time.”

“Really,” Kurt repeats. He likes the idea of being the subject of positive gossip for a change. “Oh, that’s right — the Warblers did really well last year, right?”

“All the way to Nationals.”

Kurt makes a suitably impressed face.

“And what about you? You got that nice write-up in  _Time Out_  — that’s got to be good news, right?”

It was a review, no longer than a paragraph, but it had had a star next to it: a recommended pick. Kurt had bought five copies of the magazine and sent two of them home to his dad. He didn’t expect a lot of other people would have noticed it, though. “You saw that?”

Blaine nods. “That’s why I picked this place.”

Kurt’s not quite sure how to take that. “Oh. Well, I’m flattered to be date-night worthy.”

“Well, yeah.” Blaine’s voice turns conspiratorial. “He was this hookup? And I kind of got the sense he was probably going to blow me off.”

“But you asked him out anyway?”

“I — It just seemed like good manners.”

It’s a really, really good thing Kurt didn’t know this boy was gay back in Ohio. If Blaine had given him a look like this one, all sweet self-mockery and sex, back when he was a terrified teen virgin, he might have fainted.

“Manners are an important part of the Grindr experience,” he manages.

Blaine laughs at that, delighted and surprised. “It was a campus dance. But yeah.”

“Well.” Kurt’s not sure what to say next.

“I think I just wanted an excuse to hear you sing again. You never got enough competition solos.”

“We agree on that,” Kurt says. “I’m glad you came.”

“Me too.”

Back on stage, Ryan is tuning her guitar; it’s time to go back. “I — can you stay?”

Blaine smiles. “Yeah. Sure. I’d like that.”

“Good. Good.” He picks up their drinks — two bottles of beer and a cranberry-and-soda for himself — from where they’ve been waiting for him on the bar. “Our next break’s at eleven.”

Back up on stage, the first song of the set’s only okay, not their best work, but then something clicks, and they’re on fire. He can tell from the way the crowd’s quieted down a bit that they’re connecting, too. The set list is good — American songbook classics mixed in with modern stuff, Sharon Jones and Amy Winehouse and Adele’s version of the Cure’s “Lovesong.” Their last set of the night has the heavy hitters, “At Last,” and “Fever” and all the songs that will send people out into the night in each other’s arms if he sings them right. He wants to make sure to save enough of his voice for those songs, but Blaine Anderson is standing at the long communal table at the back, by the bar, and he hasn’t taken his eyes off Kurt once. Kurt wants to make sure he knows he’s been noticed.

Steve counts them off and they’re starting on one of the band’s favorites, “Ain’t Misbehavin’.” They take it a little slower than a lot of combos do, with solos for both guitar and percussion. Usually he sings it flirtatious and hard-to-get, but Blaine’s eyes on him for the last half-hour have made him giddy and brave, and he purrs it into the microphone like a promise.  _I’m saving — oh baby — my love for you_.

During the guitar solo, Steve shoots him a  _what-the-fuck?_ look, but Kurt just smiles and shakes his head. A little over an hour from now, he’s taking that boy in the audience home with him, and they’re going to do everything that he didn’t even know how to fantasize about back in high school. He can put up with his band giving him shit for it now.

The solos end, and Kurt steps back up to the mic. They always end this song the same way, but Kurt’s got a slight change in mind. “ _Ain’t misbehavin’_ ,” he sings, “ _I’m savin’ my love for you —_ ” he points out into the dark, “ _and you, and you… and most_  especially  _you_.” He points straight ahead, right at Blaine, and he sees him light up like a Christmas tree. “ _Savin’ all my love for you_ _._ ”

The applause is the loudest they’ve gotten all night.

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from a line in the song "Ain't Misbehavin'" - _Your kisses are worth waiting for_


End file.
